Noology (16 page)

“Argh…” I sigh, erupting with the untold
frustrations of my morning. “Well, I guess there is no avoiding this.”

“Someday, I am going to put myself out of
this misery,” Nirvana drones in response. We trudge down the dimly lit
corridor, dragging our numb feet the entire way. Finally reaching the end, we
turn to enter the immense hall stacked with towering wooden shelves containing
books from an ancient era. Books still utilized by the masses for medical
knowledge and resources, largely unchanged despite the passage of time.

Students lie sprawled across warped
wooden tables, lounging in musty armchairs and rotting sofas. There is only an
appearance of relaxation. In fact, these individuals are deep within the throes
of strenuous study and meticulously revising for the imminent and endless
barrage of personal evaluations.

Nirvana takes up residence in a torn
mauve couch against the far wall, and I settle into a lumpy chair beside the
literature on human cardio physiology. Cracking open the waterlogged text on my
lap, I pour over the scripture, taking careful note of important details and
cataloguing the information within my compartmentalized mind. How long can I
endure this punishment? When will my self-discipline run out?

I am extracted from my immersion in
preparations for the SMART’s by a persistent shaking rippling through my
shoulder and rattling my very core. Snapping around, I am shocked to see Tate
towering over me with a highly troubled expression. He motions for me to follow
him, and when I do not immediately respond, he snatches my forearm and begins
to pull. Fearful that my arm shall be dislocated from its socket, I surrender
to his wishes and scurry out of the library after him.

We are outside and down the street from
the building before Tate halts, pivoting to face me. Worry weighs heavily upon
his brow, and I am instantly frightened by the severity of this emotion. He
opens his mouth to speak before slamming it tightly closed again.

“Tate.” I rebuke sharply. “Spit it out.
There is something terribly wrong, and I need you to tell me. Now.”

“Avelyn, I’m so sorry…It’s Rian…”

My mind begins racing at the speed of
light, constructing a million possible scenarios involving my brother, each
more deadly than the last. I struggle to calm down and avoid hyperventilating
right then and there. I must regain control so that I can respond adequately to
the situation at hand.

“What about Rian?” I finally manage to
squeal.

“He’s in the hospital. He took some
performance enhancers, only they didn’t work. Instead he ended up going into
cardiac arrest and he collapsed on the floor of the dormitory hallway. Luckily
Cerebrus found him, and they rushed him by sairn to the emergency room.”

“Oh my God! Is he okay?!”

“He is going to be. I just bumped into
Cerebrus, and he said that they responded quickly enough to the situation, and Rian
has been revived at this point. We need to go to the hospital, though. Right
now.”

“Of course,” I reply and together we rush
to the emergency wing at a breakneck clip, placing one leaden foot in front of
the other in a hypnotic trance.

An electronic monitor keeps beeping with
a reliable consistency. The monotonous tone represents life and that my brother
is recovering from his near-death experience. Still, the foreign sound creates
an eerie discomfort since electronic devices are rarely encountered in our
lives and they are always associated with treatment and sickness.

I watch his chest heave as he breathes
slowly in and out. In. Out. In. Out. Like a metronome. He looks so peaceful
that it is hard to believe that hours ago he was on the brink of death, inches
from God’s doorstep. His sleeping body stretches the length of the bare cot,
and I gingerly pull the sterile sheets up across his muscular shoulders.

Cerebrus found him heaped in a vulnerable
pile outside of his bedroom door. He was barely conscious and completely
oblivious to everything around him. The medics say he suffered an almost lethal
reaction to poisonous compounds ingested just minutes before he was discovered.
Most likely he swallowed performance-enhancing drugs, only they were toxic
knock-offs from a black market dealer rather than pharmaceutical-grade
narcotics. The imitation pills contained traces of cyanide among other things,
and he is lucky to still be alive.

Suddenly, Rian begins to stir on the
rickety hospital bed. A nurse strolls in, measures his vitals, and releases him
into my care for the time being.

“Avey?” he questions, rubbing his eyes
with IV-laden hands. “Is that you? Where are we? What is sticking out of my
arm?”

I grab him before he can yank the tubing
from his skin.

“Rian, we are in the hospital. You had a
heart attack because of some tainted pills you ingested.”

“Oh,” he soberly replies. “Am I okay?”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t be. What the hell
were you thinking? Were you trying to kill yourself? I know school is
stressful, but you can’t commit suicide Rian! What about mom? And dad? And me?”

“Easy, Avey. I wasn’t trying to kill
myself. I just needed some extra help with my preparations for my finals.”

“Since when have you ever needed help
Rian? You are an Ascender for heaven’s sake!” I exclaim.

“Avelyn, you don’t understand. You
haven’t started your specialized classes yet. It’s demanding. In a way you have
never experienced. Everyone else is taking performance-enhancers, and I have to
compete with them for my standing and titles. I can’t be left behind just
because I come from a tier two family without the same access to resources. I
needed to take matters into my own hands and secure the necessary advantages to
stay afloat in my classes. So I went to a black market dealer and got some
widow’s web, okay?”

“No, not okay!” I furiously spit back.
“No class or exam is worth your life, Rian!”

“Of course it is! These classes, these
exams: they are my life! Without them, I have no shot. I am already the
underdog in the tier one compound. I need to prove myself more than everyone
else to secure a good title and sound future for myself. I can’t just sit back
and watch as everyone else passes by me because they have access to
pharmaceuticals that I don’t possess. Without my academic performance and
superiority, I have nothing Avelyn! I am nothing!”

Tears spring to my eyes as I register the
enormous stress my brother has been operating under. There is nothing I can do
to help: I feel the same way. We are products of our time, destined to battle
one another in the arena of medical school until the victors emerge, covered in
the blood of their fellows.

“What is going to happen, Rian?” I
whimper.

“I don’t know Avey, but whatever it is I
promise I will be fine. And so will you. I need to rest now.”

“Okay,” I kiss him firmly on the
forehead, brushing my fingers over his brown locks before departing from the
room.

Outside the door, Tate is waiting in a
folded squat against the far wall. He hops up as I close the door gently behind
me.

“Is he okay?” Tate inquires. I nod in
response, not trusting myself to speak quite yet.

“Are you?” he replies. I nod once again
in weak affirmation. Tate slides his warm arms around my trembling body,
sheltering my slight frame within his larger one. He acts as a human shield,
hiding my convulsive sobs from view and offering me support as I shudder in
anguish. After a few minutes, I manage to utter a few words despite my
distressed state.

“What do you think will happen to him?” I
choke out. Each word tastes like acid as it passes through my quivering lips.

“Honestly, I don’t know Avelyn.”

“Why are you helping me, after all I did
to you? I was so critical.”

“You mean more to me than a stupid
argument. And so does Rian. I can’t leave my friend in her greatest time of
need just because of some silly little fight. We’ve built too much together.”

“You know he was spinning when this
happened. They weren’t pharmaceutical-grade pills, but cheap replicas from some
low-life drug dealer.” Tate doesn’t respond at first. He remains calmly
indifferent to this information. That’s when I decide to take the leap.

“You can’t,” I blurt.

“What?” Tate queries in confusion.

“You can’t spin anymore,” I blubber. “I
mean just look at what it did to Rian. You could die, Tate. I can’t bear to
lose you. I thought I already lost you because of what I said, but I can’t
actually lose you to some crippling drug addiction or catastrophic poisonous
reaction.” Much as I fight to contain my tears, they stream down my face,
staining my sweater with salty droplets.
 
 

“Easy, Avelyn. Calm down. I haven’t taken
any since I passed my SMART’s.”

“You can’t, Tate. Not anymore. Promise
me. Please,” I implore.

“I won’t,” he sighs. “You don’t have to
worry about me. I can see the toll this is taking on everyone and I can’t
afford to be that person. Not after what I have gone through at home.”

As I stand, cradled against his chest,
the constant thumping of his heartbeat soothes my body and I fall into a gentle
meditative state.

A few uneventful hours pass, and in the
dead of night my parents burst into the constricting hospital waiting room
demanding to see their son immediately. They stampede down the hall and into
his little private room to assess the situation for themselves. In the
meantime, I continue to daydream as I prop myself up against Tate’s steady
frame. He sags slightly against the wall, and I can feel a heavy sleepiness
beginning to take hold as he struggles to keep himself alert.

“You can go home,” I whisper, rousing him
from the tentative grasp of slumber. “I am so grateful for all of your support,
but you need rest too. Why don’t you leave me here? I can handle it.”

“Nonsense. I am not going to leave you
alone. Not now,” he stubbornly refuses.

“C’mon Tate. This isn’t really helping
anyone and you are going to fall asleep soon anyways. Please go home and get a
good night’s rest.”

He expels a shuddering sigh, rubbing his
bloodshot eyes with nimble fingers. “Maybe just for a few hours. I can come
back first thing in the morning to spend the day with you. What are you going
to do? You need sleep too.”

“Me? I’m fine. I will just pass out here
in the waiting room, and I’ll be good as new tomorrow. I can’t go back; not
until I know what is going to happen.”

“Okay, if you’re sure…”

“Positive. Have a good night Tate. Oh,
and thank you.” As he stands to leave, I throw my arms around him one last time
and focus my energy on concentrating all of my gratitude into the embrace.
Turning to leave, he offers one last goodbye with a raised arm as he strolls
out of the building.

“See you in the morning,” he calls.

Now I am alone. There is no one else in
the waiting room, and the medical staff members are all preoccupied once again.
I begin to torture myself with visions of Rian’s fate and the various projected
futures he may face. The government does not dwell on suicides or drug usage; however,
it maintains a strict policy of discipline when infractions do crop up. In
order to protect popular opinion and socialization of normalized rules, any
actions that can be interpreted as unstable or rebellious are treated with the
utmost severity. I begin to quake with fear for my brother’s life.

The austere black portal at the far side
of the room swings open to reveal my father standing in the archway. He swiftly
crosses to my side and takes up residence in the seat next to me.

“Your mother is with him now.”

“Is everything okay?” I inquire, worry
flitting across my face as I try to suppress the throbbing in my chest.

“Yes. Everything seems to be stable, and
I think we are almost out of the woods here. He was lucky. Stupid, but lucky. I
just never in a million years believed that my kids would be subjected to such
intense pressure that they turned to dangerous narcotics for help.”

He stares off into the empty void as his
mind races with this train of thought. I am not even a blip registering on his
radar right now; he is in another world of his own construction.

“Dad?” I hazard a greeting to rip him
from this stupor.

“Sorry, Avey,” he shakes his head
vigorously. “You don’t…you know…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t…take drugs, do you? I didn’t
think I would ever have to have this conversation with you, but in light of
recent events I think it is necessary. You know your mother and I are here to
support you. You don’t need to turn to narcotics if you are feeling
overwhelmed; just let us help you through it.”

“Of course not!” I exclaim, surprise
widening my eyes. “I have never relied on drugs to get me through my
examinations and classes, and I never will. This experience has illuminated the
consequences of such habits, and I assure you I have no desire to go through
what Rian is having to. I know how difficult it is to look at him and ask,
‘Could I have changed his mind or stopped him?’ The last thing I want to do is
burden anyone else with my own stresses.”